Life & Times in Brooklyn and abroad.

Hanging With Mack Wilds At Canal Street Market

Since December, I have been moonlighting, or I guess in this circumstance “daylighting” at the Canal Street Market. Located at 261-267 Canal Street in Chinatown, the space is a massive multi-vendor marketplace, housing various small businesses, designers, and makers, most that are local to New York. The market opened in December 2016 to the public, just in time for the holidays, and just this month, opened a Food Hall on May 15th. I have worked sales booths for EIR NYC, Upstate Stock, Kindred Black, as well as the market’s Design Shop, and even on my days off, I find myself coming right back to the market.

In addition to all the shopping and food offerings, the market hosts a multitude of multidisciplinary events (product launches, magazine parties, talks, etc.), and it becoming a hot spot to shoot content, giving its clean design and Instagram-worthy murals by Alex Proba.

Look at these kids! LOL

A few weeks back on one of my days off, my boy Jason asked if I wanted to be second camera for a VIBE Magazine shoot with Mack Wilds at Canal Street Market. I have known Mack and the VIBE team since 2013, back when I was at Concrete Loop and I interviewed him for the site (still one of my favorite artist interviews to date that you can view here), so of course I said yes. I walked in that Friday afternoon to the market and my peeps there were a bit confused. They knew I was not scheduled to work that day, so as I walked further back into the lounge, they knew I was there for the shoot. We had a full team, Mikey Fresh interviewing, Jason L. Chandler filming, and Karl Ferguson Jr. shooting behind-the-scenes photos. In my words, “Black Eyed Peas with Fergie.”

As we had to wait on Mack for a little bit, I was the light tester for Karl, meaning it was like a mini fake photoshoot for me, which I am totally cool with. More content! We set up the lounge area that was curated by West Elm, to evoke maximum cozy + cool factor for the shoot, and I think we did a pretty good job.

Album cover or nah?

Once he arrived, I received the biggest hug in the world, and we got down to it. I helped mic him up and make sure no wires were visible on camera. Once he was ready, I got behind the second camera to ensure we got a clean second angle while Jason was on the main camera, and Mikey interviewed. It was really awesome to see how much Mack has grown as an artist, just having released his second album, After Hours, with the accompanying mini-series on TIDAL, and starring in not one, but two television series, VH1’s The Breaks and FOX’s Shots Fired, respectively.

After the conclusion of the interview, we chopped it up a bit and Karl took all the super-fun photos of us together that you see above. It was an awesome afternoon, and a reminder that no matter how crazy life can be, I always end up in the right place at the right time.

Portrait by Karl Ferguson Jr.

Watch a clip from his interview with VIBE’s Mikey Fresh below, and stay tuned for new tings and collabs from yours truly!